A Different Kind of Battlefield

Posted on Sat Jul 5th, 2025 @ 10:49am by Ensign James Arundel & Ensign Debbie Larson & Ensign Cameron Kore

2,454 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: A marathon not a sprint
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: Md03

ON:

James paused outside of the door to Sickbay for a brief moment, taking a deep breath to both calm and gee himself up at the same time. His first shift on his new assignment. Not his first assignment on a Starfleet ship, no, he had a couple of those under his belt already. But the ex-marine just couldn't shake the feeling of needing to prove himself everytime he went to a new ship. Tugging his broad shoulders back to straighten up, he moved in, looking around the place that would become his new territory.

As the door opened Cameron looked up from performing a diagnostic on one of the bio beds and saw the tall blonde haired human entering sickbay. She'd heard about a newly arrived medical officer that was tall blonde and blue eyed. "You must be the new surgeon Lt Ross talked about." She said by way of greeting.

"That would be me," he tilted his head with a small smile of amusement, as if to say 'guilty as charged'. He made his way over, looking curiously as to what she was doing. "Ensign James Arundel, surgeon...and all around spare pair of hands."

As James got closer Cameron took a better look at him, he had the intense look in his eye of a military man but was quite cute. "I'm Ensign Kore, Cameron. One of the nurses."

He resisted the urge to offer his hand over, in case it offended. It still felt strange though. "A pleasure to meet you, Cameron. Sorry to break it to you, but you've got me for my first shift," he said with a small, wry smile as he held his hands out apologetically to either side. Some people enjoyed showing the new staff the ropes...others wondered what they'd done to deserve the extra burden.

"We all have to start somewhere." Cameron remarked, James seemed old for an Ensign but there could be many reasons for that. "Have you seen much in the medical line of work?"

"I...was a field surgeon, in the marines," James nodded slowly as he spoke, the small, wry smile growing because he had a feeling that wouldn't make first impressions any better. The rivalry between marines and the fleet was certainly played up for dramatic effect, when in reality, the two organisations usually worked well together. But still, he'd experienced some scepticism, just occasionally, as to how well an ex-marine could acclimatise to a Starfleet sickbay. "But I was retrained, and this isn't my first fleet position."

Cameron nodding in understanding "Efficient at breaking people and putting people back together. Very handy."

"I suppose you could put it like that," he admitted with a slight laugh, his eyes shining with humour. "Right, what can I do to help you out around here?" he asked bluntly, resisting the urge to pull his jacket sleeves up.

"How are your technical skills?" Cameron asked. "This biobed is giving all kinds of mixed up readings."

"Not the best, but I can take a look," he replied honestly, moving to tap the screen at the side of the bed in question. "Fancy being my test subject?" he gave a slight tilt of his head, as if trying to tempt her to play the magician's assistant.

"Sure, hop on and lay down." Cameron said with a small smile, she switched the biobed setting from maintenance mode to normal function.

James sighed theatrically at her asking him to be the test subject instead. He was the new one, he supposed, hierarchy and all that. He did as told, lying out on the bed, stretching to try and get his tall, solid frame comfortable on the stiff bed. "What do you think, will I live?" he teased.

"Well according to this you have the blood pressure of a Caitian male during his wives heat, so unless you suddenly sprout hair everywhere, the bio bed is definitely malfunctioning." Cameron said after less than a minutes scanning.

James couldn't help but chuckle at the colourful picture she painted, and he propped himself up on his elbows to take a look at the results for himself. He reached across, tapping the screen to kick off a diagnostic. "Let's go with the knackered bed theory..."

"One of the diagnostic sensors must be bust." Cameron said. "But there's about a dozen on them in each of these biobeds, figuring out which is gonna be hard."

"We could call in Ops?" he suggested, tapping on the screen as he cycled through the results, shaking his head with a frown. "The extent of my experience with things like this is turning them off and switching them back on again."

Cameron shook her head. "Only if we can't figure it out ourselves, you're going to need to learn how to fix medical equipment yourself."

James grimaced slightly, but tilted his head in a way that said he knew she was right. He sighed heavily, but in a 'let's do it' kind of way rather than anything gloomy. Perching on the edge of the bed, he scrolled through to try and isolate the error in the results. "I mean, it can't be that much harder than a human body to fix, right?"

"The human body can certainly surprise you more than technology can," Cameron told him. "Technology either works or it doesn't, the human body sometimes finds a way to work despite being broken." She pulled a side panel off the bio bed and took a look inside.

"The will to survive is strong," James agreed, distracted from the screen as he looked down to her at the mention of how remarkable living organisms could be when under stress. "Both consciously and unconsciously. I hear this ship has had its fair share of trauma."

"I'm relatively new to the ship but I've heard some stories." Cameron gave a small chuckle. "Keep an eye out for Ensign Turell, she's a great security officer but has a tendency to get hurt pretty good whenever the shooting starts, I swear she's more scar tissue than regular flesh."

James couldn't help but laugh slightly at the colourful way she'd described her, shaking his head as he gave a playful tut. "Still, sounds like she keeps us in work, hm?"

"There's over 300 people on this ship, we're definitely busy enough without having to put Amanda back together every so often." Cameron said as she looked deeper into the machinery. "There's a toolkit under the hypospray dock, will you grab it."

He hopped lightly down from the bed, crouching to take a hold of the box, tugging it free. "I think I'd rather have it that way," he admitted as he moved to her, flipping it open. "Hours can drag in a quiet Sickbay, I'd rather have too much to do," he admitted quietly.

"It's always good to find a project to work on when you're not treating patients, something you can easily stop and start again with it affecting your progress." Cameron unpacked a few tools and examined the biobed some more.

"Hm, that might be trickier then," he admitted with a soft laugh, shifting to give her a better view. "Always been more of a field type than a lab type...but I'm sure I'll find something to keep me occupied."

"I'm sure you will," Cameron remarked then let out a sigh. "The whole sensor is going to need replacing. We'll have to get engineering to make us one."

James sighed at the news, a sound that almost became a groan. Because in his experience, engineers weren't the most tactful people to have crawling around a med bay. But needs must. "At least I don't feel entirely useless for not being able to fix it now," he teased instead, putting the request in.

"And we have several biobeds still working while this one gets fixed." Cameron told him, she looked up when she heard the doors to sickbay opening. "Looks like we have a patient."

"Hey Cameron." Ensign Debbie Larson called out as she came through the door, her voice quite level despite cradling her left arm; the uniform had been pulled back to her elbow and there was a sizeable cut from her the middle of her hand to part way down her forearm. "Hey Ensign." She then added not knowing the definitely new medical officer.

"James Arundel," he offered with a weak smile, reaching out to carefully take her arm, urging it away from the cradled position against her body so they could see what was going on. A large cut marred the skin, but more, there seemed to be burn damage too. "What happened, Ensign?"

"Plasma cutter, I was in a jefferies tube on deck 5, working at a weird angle and I slipped." Debbie replied. "Got myself pretty good I'd say."

"I'd say so too," James gave her a wry chuckle at the matter of fact way she put it. He glanced to Cameron to make sure it was okay to take the lead. "Could you bring the Ensign's file up please?" he was reaching for a hypo to load a painkiller for her before they did anything else. But he waited to double check there were no allergies first.

Debbie waved off the hypo. "I'm not allergic to anything but there's already a dose of Terakine going through me, can't feel a thing."

James nodded as he urged her up onto the bed, taking a tricorder to start scanning the damaged tissue. "Any other injuries? You can tell me the plasma cutter came off worse if you like, if it makes you feel better?" he chuckled softly, his gaze already going to the scrolling data on the screen.

"Just before my hand slipped I had a weird kinda twinge up my back," Debbie replied, "wasn't expecting it."

"Huh...we'll take a look at that too," James assured before taking a hold of her hand to carefully stretch her arm away from the instinctive cradled position. He slowly hovered the regenerator over, working on the burned tissue first. "Any other back pain recently? Tension?" He knew it wasn't necessarily a popular question. Most fleeters had a distinct dislike of admitting anything close to tension or fatigue.

Debbie shook her head slightly. "Nothing that comes to mind, I was all kinds of twisted around to hold myself in the right place for this repair."

"Ah..." he nodded gently, accepting the reply as having the ring of truth to it. Bodies could only deal with so much punishment before something had to give. "Well even when this is fixed up, it'll still be tender. So you'll need to take the rest of the day off and let us know if it gives you any trouble."

"'Take the rest of the day off' like music to my ears." Debbie said with a chuckle then a small gasp as the dermal regenerator worked its magic on the burns but the singed flesh still tingled.

James laughed with her, shaking his head gently. "You'd be surprised how many people ignore the advice," he sighed theatrically. "Stretching is still the best way to stop back problems, so I'll send a few simple stretches for you to do before and after sleep to help with those tight squeezes."

"Surprised my back gave me a little trouble, never had it before," Debbie remarked. "especially with all the yoga and swimming and all that I do."

"None of us are getting any younger," James offered her an apologetic half smile, chuckling softly with it. It was something most people didn't like to hear, no matter how enlightened a society was. "As we use and abuse our bodies over the years, they start to complain at us. I'll give it a full scan before you go though, just to be on the safe side."

"Sure, couldn't hurt to see if there's something going on and catch it early." Debbie smiled slightly

James gave a reassuring nod as he caught up the tricorder, running the probe over the back. It was nice to have this time with patients. His old world had been full of emergency patch ups and lugging unconscious people about. "There's some mild inflammation, nothing serious, probably repetitive injury," he logged it before sending some stretching videos to her personal computer. "I've sent you some stretches that can help, and I want you to take an anti-inflammatory every day for the next week, okay?"

"I can do that, can't promise I'll not forget to take them though." Debbie chuckled. "You know how it is with engineers."

"Oh I'll be making sure you're taking them Debbie, even if I have to come down there and inject you myself." Cameron called out from the other side of the room.

James laughed softly at the exchange, stepping back to let her stand, motioning for her to test out moving her arm. "All done...let me know if it gives you any trouble though. And remember to take it easy..."

Debbie slipped off the biobed and gave her arm a few gentle swishes. "Still a little tingly but feels good otherwise."

James grinned at that, nodding with the satisfaction of a job well done. It was one definite improvement of his work with the regular fleet rather than as a marine field medic. He got to see the results of his labour, a patient in recovery. "It was nice to meet you, Debbie."

"You too, hopefully next time we'll not have to meet like this." Debbie somewhat gingerly slipped the sleeve of her uniform back down her forearm. "See you both later." With that she headed for the door.

"Well done," Cameron said after Debbie had left. "Little different from the battlefield isn't it."

"You could say that," James laughed gently, shaking his head as he started to tidy up after himself out of sheer habit. "Don't get me wrong, being a battlefield surgeon is one of the most rewarding things for a while. But most of the time, your patient gets whisked away and you never see how it works out for them."

"And its not all accidentally getting burned or broken bones, remember you're a general doctor too, you'll be dealing with everything. Headaches, ingrown toenails, stomach aches, even Sti's." Cameron gave a small chuckle. "You name it you'll encounter it."

James laughed softly at the colourful description, but nodded all the same, under no illusion that it wasn't true. "I understand," he assured, saving down his notes on Debbie's file. "I shall learn to appreciate the boring days...at least they're safer than the exciting ones around here."

END:


Ensign's Cameron Kore + Debbie Larson
[Pnpc's Taliserra]

Ensign James Arundel
Surgeon
[Pnpc Rowe]

 

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